Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Carbon/Calorie Offsetting

Recently I had the good fortune to book a flight, with a well known no-frills airline (lets call them NoFrills Air), to Barcelona. During the lengthy on-line process of booking the aforementioned ticket, I was given the option to add a small surcharge,to the numerous number of compulsary surcharges, to "Carbon Offset" my journey. It would appear that for an extra sum, NoFrills Air will ensure that the 192kg of carbon dioxide my journey would pump into our already fragile atmosphere, would be offset by some investment into projects which negate the production of greenhouse gases.This got me thinking; How far will all this go? It was whilst gorging myself on a cream horn (generously provided by a coleague to celebrate his 50th birthday), I got the idea for Calorie Offsetting.It would work like this... for a small fee to Bemuddlement (lets say £5.20 per 200 calories), we would ensure that the calories consumed by yourself are "offset" by investing in programmes involving very fit people who exercise on a regular basis. This would ensure that the consumer, of aforementioned dairy based patiserie, could eat the confection of their choice, happy in the fact that their calories are being burned off by someone else.I didn't carbon offset my journey either.